The current Phoenix Broadway Series production of "Guys and Dolls" running at the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts until Sunday harks back to the golden era and tradition of Broadway musicals. What it lacks in falling chandeliers, Hollywood-like special effects and other slick trappings of recent musicals, it makes up for with tuneful melodies, vivid characters and lots of heart.

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[This message has been edited by Stuart Sweeney (edited June 20, 2002).]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><B>These `Guys and Dolls' have style all their own</B><P>Richard Christiansen, Chicago Tribune on Yahoo! News<P>The "Guys and Dolls" that's playing here through Dec. 16 is a very bright, very broad cartoon version of the classic Broadway musical. It's pitched at a high noise level and played at a frantic pace, its jokes delivered with such mugging and screeching that you can almost see the dialogue pop out in comic strip balloons.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><B>This link is now broken</B><p>[This message has been edited by Stuart Sweeney (edited June 20, 2002).]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>What a `Guy': Dancer Maurice Hines rolls into Hub as gambler Nathan Detroit<P>Bob Nesti, Boston Herald<P>For nearly 50 years, Maurice Hines has been dancing as fast as he can.<P>First in the 1950s when he paired with his younger brother Gregory in a tap act that toured nightclubs, and then in the 1960s when the brothers joined their father in an act known as ``Hines, Hines and Dad'' and became a staple on television, especially ``The Tonight Show.''<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><a href=http://www2.bostonherald.com/entertainment/arts_culture/hine03292002.htm target=_blank>More</a>

Damon Runyon is great and I really enjoyed the National Theatre's London production from 15 years ago or so. It was one of the most delightful musicals I've seen and had Bob Hoskins as Nathan, before he became big in films. But sexy he wasn't.

<B>Talented Actors in 'Guys and Dolls' Beat Tough Odds</B> <BR>Music, Tiny Stage Cramp Cast's Style <BR>By Michael Toscano for The Washington Post<P><BR>It's been 52 years since "Guys and Dolls" premiered, but it remains the greatest of all musical comedies.<P>The motley collection of Broadway gamblers and racetrack touts, chorus girls, flinty cops and missionary do-gooders was conceived by Damon Runyon and remains indelibly colorful. The songs by Frank Loesser are all melodic and memorable, with witty lyrics that offer rich portraits of the characters.<P>With a script by Jo Swerling and Abe Burroughs, it's funny and romantic with a lot of sass. The Montgomery Playhouse at Asbury has "Guys and Dolls" for its season finale, a production featuring a talented troupe hindered by cramped space and weak music direction.<P>Despite severe technical handicaps, the energetic cast pulls together to delight the audience, especially Bill Tedesco as Nathan Detroit and Will Hayden and Gary Sullivan as his cronies, Nicely-Nicely Johnson and Benny Southstreet. <P><A HREF="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11718-2002Jun19.html" TARGET=_blank><B>click for more</B></A>

Guys and Dolls has had four turns on Broadway (and is probably due for another pretty soon), been nominated for 18 Tony Awards and won 10 through the years. Frank Loesser's fable is generally thought of as the perfect musical comedy, has been performed by nearly every high school drama club in America, and is back yet again. The Broward Stage Door Theatre in Coral Springs sports a nicely nicely done revival by Hugh Murphy that's familiar and charming, even when it slips into cheesiness.

Long Wharf has assembled a near-perfect cast for the reduced but never shrunken revision of "Guys and Dolls," but it is the peroxide-wigged Tia Speros' Adelaide who puts the wittiest spin on Loesser's lyrics. Spindly and sharp-featured, she is both graceful and slightly tottery, and her timing and nuances kindle a special spark in the lament of a sneezy 14-year fiancee...

Actor Ewan McGregor is to make his West End musical debut in a new production of Guys And Dolls. The revival of the 1950s show sees the Star Wars actor play the lead role of Sky Masterson, a chronic gambler who falls in love with a missionary.

Actor Ewan McGregor has confessed that he found the choreography for his new West End show daunting when he turned up for his first day at work. McGregor, 34, is to star in Guys and Dolls, his first stage musical.

He said he was already concerned about the singing when he turned up for rehearsals and saw the dancing steps, calling them "full-on".

"But maybe it was the element of the musical that I considered the least beforehand," he added.

Now, the same show, in an entirely different production directed by Michael Grandage, is signalling the West End musical theatre debut of contemporary cinema's favourite Scotsman, Ewan McGregor. If, as McGregor's character Sky Masterson might put it, luck is indeed a lady tomorrow night, London will be falling in love with Guys and Dolls all over again.

Modern musical revival born of a Loesser lightby NORMAN LEBRECHT for the Scotsman

SOMETHING is simmering in the state of musical theatre. While opera stagnates, and ballet marks time, a roar of energy comes burning off an art form that is not just dead but four times dead, cremated by the remembered intensity of past combustions.

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